Monday, April 30, 2012

And now we
reach, at long last, the end of our detailed critical look at Alex Rosenberg’s The Atheist’s Guide to Reality. In this final post I
want to examine what Rosenberg has to say about a set of philosophical
arguments he regards as “among the last serious challenges to scientism” (p. 228). The arguments in question all entail that the
realm of conscious experience -- what common sense says we know only “from
inside” (p. 238), from a point of view “somewhere behind the eyes” (p. 222) -- cannot
be accounted for in terms of neuroscience or physical science more
generally. In his treatment of these
arguments, we get Rosenberg simultaneously at his best and at his worst.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

In his previous publications Professor
Feser has shown himself to be a philosopher of the first rank, and in this work
he has given us a document of singular importance. Of all the books written in response to “the
new atheists” … this one has to be counted among the very best. There are three
principal reasons why this is so. The
first has to do with the style in which the book is written; it is direct,
clear, forceful, and—no small matter—witty. Secondly, the arguments which carry the
substance of the book are of the highest quality; they are tightly constructed,
masterfully controlled, and compelling. Thirdly—and
I take this to be the book’s strongest feature—there is the manner in which Professor
Feser sets the phenomenon of the new atheism in a larger historical/philosophical
context, and thereby gives it sharper identity and makes it more fully
understandable. He shows that the new
atheism, and the secularism of which it is a particular manifestation, did not
come out of the blue, but that it has its roots in our philosophical past; to know
that philosophical past is to have a firmer grip on the philosophical present.

As I say,
very kind, as is the rest of the review.
One correction, though. Of the
expression “New Atheists,” Prof. McInerny writes: “that designation, I believe,
originates with Feser.” In fact I cannot
take credit for it. I believe I first
came across the expression “The New Atheism” in the cover story of the November 2006 issue of Wired magazine, around two years before
my book appeared.

Monday, April 23, 2012

I recently
linked to philosopher of physics David Albert’s take
down of Lawrence Krauss’s book A
Universe From Nothing. (My own
review of Krauss will soon appear in First
Things.) A reader calls my attention
to this blog post in
which Victor
Stenger -- Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado, Professor
Emeritus of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Hawaii, and author of
several atheist tomes -- rides to the rescue of Krauss against Albert. (If only the other philosophically incompetent
New Atheists had such a knight in shining armor! O Dawkins, where is your Stenger? O Coyne, where is your Victor?)

Friday, April 20, 2012

I recently
called attention to my essay “Natural
Law, Natural Rights, and Private Property,” which appears on Liberty Fund’s
Library of Law and Liberty website.
Prof. James Bruce and Prof. Bas Van der Vossen each kindly wrote a
critical response to my essay. (Their
responses can be found here
and here.) They raise important questions, and in what
follows I want to reply to their objections.
(Naturally it will be helpful if you first read the three original
essays before moving on to what follows.)

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Our long critical look at Alex Rosenberg’s The Atheist’s Guide to Reality now brings us at last to that most radical of Rosenberg’s claims -- the thesis that neither our thoughts nor anything else has any meaning whatsoever. To the reader unfamiliar with recent philosophy of mind I should emphasize that the claim is not merely that our thoughts, actions, and lives have no ultimate point or purpose, which is hardly a novel idea. It is far more bizarre than that. Consider the following two sequences of shapes: “cat” and “^\*:” We would ordinarily say that the first has meaning -- it refers to animals of the feline sort -- while the latter is a meaningless set of marks. And we would ordinarily say that while the meaning of a word like “cat” is conventional, the meaning of our thoughts about cats -- from which the meaning of the word in question derives -- is intrinsic or “built in” to the thought rather than conventional or derived. What Rosenberg is saying is that in reality, both our thoughts about cats and the sequence of shapes “cat” are as utterly meaningless as the sequence of shapes “^\*:” Neither “cat” nor any of our thoughts is any more about cats or about anything else than the sequence “^\*:” is about anything. Meaning, “aboutness,” or intentionality (to use the technical philosophical term) is an illusion. In fact, Rosenberg claims, “the brain does everything without thinking about anything at all.”

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

I’m firmly of the opinion that real progress in philosophy can only come from taking common sense seriously. A departure from common sense is usually an indication that a mistake has been made. If you like, common sense is the data of philosophy and a philosopher should no more ignore common sense than a scientist should ignore the results of observation. A good example concerns ontology. Many philosophers have wanted to deny that there are chairs or numbers [or] the like. This strikes me as crazy and is an indication that they have not had a proper understanding of what is at issue. By recognizing that these things are crazy we can then come to a better understanding of what is at issue and of how the questions of ontology are to be resolved.

Naturally, I agree, as any Aristotelian or Thomist would. But why favor common sense? Is this merely an ungrounded prejudice, an expression of bourgeois complacency, of discomfort with novelty, or a failure of imagination? Or are there principled reasons for taking common sense seriously?

About Me

I am a writer and philosopher living in Los Angeles. I teach philosophy at Pasadena City College. My primary academic research interests are in the philosophy of mind, moral and political philosophy, and philosophy of religion. I also write on politics, from a conservative point of view; and on religion, from a traditional Roman Catholic perspective.